


i'm so tired of you, america

by ladyweasels



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Character Study, Coming of Age, Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, this is me waxing poetic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:08:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23959690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyweasels/pseuds/ladyweasels
Summary: "From Australia to Antwerp, Boris' life appeared to any skepticist as nothing but a made-up story. Having a dead mother and deadbeat father was a common enough occurrence, but having lived in nearly a dozen countries before the age of fifteen was something that raised a few eyebrows. Surely that brevity—that fleeting acceptance—wasn’t good for him. A no-attachments kind of life was no way to live.In just over a decade, he’d gone from an impoverished thief, starving and suicidal, to a well-dressed businessman, clean-shaven and sharp-tongued. Boris couldn’t be held down, even now, surely not by anyone or any thing or any place."
Relationships: Theodore Decker & Boris Pavlikovsky, Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 3
Kudos: 43





	i'm so tired of you, america

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god...
> 
> this fic has been such a long time in the making and i'm so excited to finally be able to post it. i started it originally as writing practice, but i ended up having so much fun hyper-analyzing the book that it ended up becoming this ginormous two-shot.
> 
> anddd the title is inspired by the wonderful song going to a town by rufus wainwright. honestly, i would kill for that beautiful gay man.

Boris takes the painting on a whim. He doesn’t stop and think about what it could mean for him, being in possession of such a priceless work of art, he simply does what his mind tells him to. And his mind tells him to take it and run. 

Stomach growling, fumbling through Theo’s locker for some spare cash to get his lunch with, he comes across a parcel of newspaper and packing tape and immediately forgets how hungry he is. He takes it out of the locker to inspect it. 

Turning it over in his hands, he gnaws on his lower lip, deep in thought. He drops the parcel into his backpack and closes the locker door, his lunch entirely forgotten. He takes a quick detour to the ceramics studio to steal one of their knives, thinking briefly about how unsafe it is that they leave that place unlocked. The blade is dull and worn, but it’ll have to do.

Slipping into the art hallway boy’s bathroom, thankfully empty, he heads straight for the handicap stall. He latches the door shut and sits down on the toilet, taking the wrapped parcel out of his backpack. The dull knife doesn’t help much, but it’s better than nothing. He sits there, crouched on the toilet, for nearly half an hour, stripping away layer upon layer of tape and newspaper (dated July 2003, he realizes, a month before he meets Theo) until he finally rips off the last piece of paper. Is that…?  
  
The painting. _Theo’s_ painting.

He’s seen it before, basked in the glow of the living room television. He’d been speechless when Theo had first shown it to him, captivated by its entirety, but more so by its eyes—black yet so full of life and emotion. 

The little bird had accepted its fate. It would be shackled to its post for all of eternity, imprisoned by a short, spindly chain. It looked as if it were staring out, through the wooden board it was painted on, and directly at him. Perhaps, he realized after a moment, that there was a tinge of hope in the bird’s eyes, a sense of desperation and will to be set free upon the world.

Seeing it now, though, in the filtered, artificial light of the school bathroom feels all wrong. This magnificent painting, though small, deserves more than to be wrapped up in an old sports newspaper, shielded from the outside world. The bird deserves its freedom, and selfishly, Boris wants it all to himself. 

The painting had come to Boris on a silver platter, engraved with his name in the ridges. What was Theo thinking, keeping something so precious cooped up in his locker, where anyone could go in and steal it? It would be much safer if Boris kept the painting to himself… wouldn’t it?

And so, making up his mind, he does everything he can to cover up his tracks, and he does it fast. He puts the painting back into his bag, tosses the wad of newspaper and tape into the trash, and heads out to find Kotku to see if she’ll help him, no questions asked. She owes him, anyway.

It’s his first mistake, and the biggest one yet—switching the painting. Wanting to keep it for himself is selfish and greedy, but, for whatever reason, it falling into his hands feels almost predestined—like things were meant to happen this way. 

Still, the decision on what to do with the painting is last minute and certainly done without much thought beforehand. He’s always been impulsive, no prior thought at all of the potential consequences or repercussions. He’s always dealt with things as they come along, considering them briefly before ultimately acting upon his instincts—a trait that he’d learned from his pisshead of a father, who moved from city to city, town to town like an indecisive nomad. 

Boris’ spontaneity soon controlled all aspects of his life. It was inescapable, a constant block on his sense of right and wrong, good and bad, and it led to him doing both the best and worst thing he’d ever do in his life: steal the painting.

Seeing the act of stealing from the person he cared about most, his very best friend, as a ‘good thing’ was a strange way to interpret what he had done. There was an ugly part of him deep down, greedy and usurious, that supported this idea shamelessly—the painting had brought him more wealth at one time than he’d ever see again in his life. The second it leaves his hands, though, passed along briefly for drug collateral, he’s hit with a wave of realization: he’d fucked up way more than he’d originally thought.

It was at the center of everything, the genesis of all the bad things he does in his life afterward. Taking it leads him further down a path of crime and injustice, upper-level drug rings and mafias, a boy following closely in his father’s footsteps. He betrays the person he cares about more than anything and anyone else. Because still, underneath everything, he’s a Ukrainian street rat, a boy with sticky fingers, sad and poor and alcoholic.

After Theo leaves, concealed Civics book in hand, Boris wanders the desert like a Jewish exile. His father left for Australia with a short, unsympathetic goodbye, choosing to leave without his son this time around ( _You are old enough now, Borya, to make your own choices,_ he’d explained in Ukrainian, _To support yourself. No help_ ).

Boris was never angry with his father for having done what he’d done—the scene was an all-too-familiar one. Time and time again with the same outcome. Overflowing suitcases, a hard-eyed apology, the low hum of a retreating engine.

Addicted to cocaine, high off his ass more often than not, out partying until the break of day, Boris runs on fumes and crashes hard. He makes a few ‘friends’ along the way, but no one big enough to fill the Theo-sized hole in his heart. These so-called friends, he soon finds out, are only interested in the things he has to offer, usually in the form of some sort of drug.

He dishes out a lot of Xandra’s cocaine, gaining more popularity around school the more he gives away, but most of it goes right up his nose. The green oxys he stole from Larry go for more money than he knows what to do with. Those kind of cancer pills—tranquilizers, practically—aren’t made anymore, and Boris can tell why. After only one line, his eyes roll into the back of his head and he blacks out. He comes to with a stinging cheek and a face full of Kotku’s hair. She tells him that she was “this-close” to using the Narcan.

(Boris doesn’t tell her that he has no Narcan. If he’d actually overdosed, there's no telling how screwed he would've been. It makes him wonder if Kotku would go as far as to call an ambulance. It would get them into some serious trouble with the law, but he’d at least get his life out of it. He wonders if Kotku would risk it for him. He honestly doubts it. He likes to think she would’ve at least tried to find Narcan some other way).

His nose bleeds for four hours afterward, a steady flow of coppery crimson. There’s a metallic taste in the back of his throat that he can’t seem to wash down no matter how much vodka he drinks.

A few weeks after Theo leaves, Boris fucks everything up with Kotku. After a rather public run-in with her much older boyfriend (a confrontation he doesn’t quite remember the details of, only the outcome; a purpling bruise on his cheekbone), she’s been giving him the cold shoulder. He tries to visit her at the Double R a few times, but she refuses to answer the door. He’s almost certain she’s in there—he could’ve sworn he’d seen the curtains rustle through the window—but all he gets in return is radio silence. Through the door, he apologizes over and over again for whatever it was that he’d done to make her so angry, begs her repeatedly to let him in to say sorry “good and proper.”

Eventually, after almost a week of constant pestering, he gives up.

She never speaks to him again.

He sees her once a few weeks later, crouched in an alley behind a 7/11 with another guy. There’s a leather belt on the ground beside them that’s split with stretch marks.

The guy with her looks young, around fourteen or so. He’s hook-nosed and scraggly, hair slicked back above the ears. Pants unzipped, hanging loose around his hips, pupils dilated, he’s laughing with Kotku like nothing else matters.

Kotku looks just as Boris remembers her—the same hair, a bright orange streak down black fringe, the same meager height, scant weight, flat-chested and bony, even more malnourished and bruised than he and Theo had been in the midst of summer when there wasn’t cafeteria food to hold them over.

She doesn’t see him, but he sees her.

He debates storming up to her, demanding that she talk to him, but something holds him back. He has a plastic bottle of Coca-Cola stuffed in the back of his pants and a pack of Marlboros in his underwear. If he doesn’t leave now, he’ll surely get caught (the clerk gave him a bemused look when he paid for a single stick of Jack Link’s Beef Jerky), so he sighs, gives her one last look, and walks away.

His popularity at school is short-lived. The kids scrape him dry, pretty much, taking him for all that he’s worth (which isn’t much). All of his cocaine disappears in the three short weeks leading up to Christmas, even the hefty portion that he saved for himself. He goes to parties with kids from school and lets himself loose. Rich kids pay good money, he realizes quickly, and he can jack up the prices to double, sometimes triple than what they actually go for.

After the cocaine goes, so do most of his clients (if he can even call them that). The others stick around because they’re too scared to talk to the “real” dealers, too inexperienced with haggling to actually get the cheapest price. The guys that hang around the Desatoya Estates Mini-Mart on Friday nights will see these kids roll up in their fancy cars and immediately get excited. They hike up the prices even more than Boris does, and he does it for much more than he really needs to.

Still, without Xandra’s cocaine, the money goes faster than it comes in. The green oxys are in high demand, and he sells each pill for nearly a hundred and fifty dollars (not without wisely advising his clients of how strong they are, telling them briefly his own partial-overdose story). He never takes another one of them, no matter how many times he secretly wants to. He’s scared that he’ll overdose for real this time, and no matter how much grief weighs down on him, no matter how much guilt he feels for all that he’s done in his life, at the end of the day, he doesn’t want to die.

He misses Theo more than he lets on. As he jumps couches, an empty-handed vagrant, he looks back on how easy his life had been when he’d had Theo to keep him company. Back then, he’d never had to worry about basic human survival—not like his miserable few years in Ukraine. He’d never had to worry about whose place he would crash at if it got too cold or if the police cruisers were out on patrol, where he’d take a shower or wash his clothes. Life with Theo had been easy. 

His father doesn’t send in the house payments after he leaves for Australia, so Boris only gets a few more weeks at his old place before the city comes to reclaim it. He sees a car parked out front with the city emblem on it and immediately panics, sure they would send him right back to Ukraine if they caught him without his father. He sneaks into his room through his bedroom window and shoves all of his stuff into his backpack.

As he slowly removes the strand of tape that holds the painting flush to the ceiling of his closet, that all-too-familiar pit of guilt settles deep in his stomach. He hasn’t looked at it since the day he wrapped it in woodshop with Kotku all those months ago. He’s wanted to—it’s all he can think about most days—but he never lets himself. Unwrapping it would make everything seem too real.

He doesn’t take it out of its shell until much, much later.

By Christmas, everything falls through.

With ten dollars, a quarter-ounce of cocaine, three Marlboros, and a priceless Dutch masterpiece all hidden in his backpack, he stumbles through Desatoya Estates with no particular destination in mind. He lets his feet guide him—he hasn’t slept in days; he’s barely there—and he doesn’t realize where he’s headed until he finds himself blinking up at 6219 Desert End Road with a lump in his throat and heavy weight on his chest.

He hasn’t been back since the night Theo left in a plume of car exhaust, a streak of bright yellow in the darkness. Seeing the house, the same as it had always been, brings back a wave of memories too strong to overlook.

He remembers that he had been crying on the night Theo left, only half-listening as he rambled on about Russians in New York and, _God_ , it was all too much, too fast. He still had the painting back at his house, and if Theo would’ve just slowed down for a minute, then maybe he could’ve cleared some things up. He wanted to tell him— he almost did, blunt and outright, ‘I switched the painting, do not be mad. If we stop by my house on the way, I can get it back for you.’

But he didn’t.

Instead, he told Theo that he’d follow, knowing good and well he wouldn’t. He tried to act like everything would turn out right in the end, but he didn’t know if it would. Doubted it, even. Theo would surely hate him once he found out about the painting, unwrapping a bundle of newspaper and packing tape only to find an old Civics textbook with the name _Boris Pavlikovsky_ scribbled on the inside page. 

He told Theo that this was all too quick and spontaneous when it was _Boris_ who had always been the impulsive one. He begged Theo to stay, to give him time, but it was all upon deaf ears. He pleaded for another day or two to collect his thoughts (and things), and to try and find some way to admit that he’d taken the painting, but only got the ten minutes that it took for the cab to come. 

And then, at the last moment, his fate was sealed with a kiss. It was chaste, a mere peck on the lips, but it was full of so much emotion that it made them both dizzy. It was an apology, an admission of guilt, and a way of saying goodbye. 

Boris had been absolutely sure that it would be the last time Theo would ever look at him without feeling an underlying twinge of hatred and betrayal. If he ever saw Theo again, it would be on bad terms, he was sure of it, merely to return the painting. Afterward, they would both go on with their lives as if they’d never met (but Boris would remember—Theo was impossible to forget—and he would hate himself until the day he died, a crumpled heap of guilt, remorse, and opiate).

Looking up at the house, merely a shell of what it used to be now that Theo isn’t there, Boris remembers that night as clearly as if it had been only yesterday. 

Just as he’s about to leave, too overwhelmed with emotion, he realizes that there’s a light on in the kitchen, and he remembers Xandra. He’s not sure if she’ll let him in—if anything, he highly doubts it—but he’s just desperate enough to try.

He turns to her when he has no one else, wandering the desert, fevered and ill, and she lets him in, albeit begrudgingly, even though he’s wronged her so many times before—stolen from her like he’s stolen from everyone he’s ever known and cared about.

She lets him stay in Theo’s old room for a few months because it’s the only other bedroom in the house. It doesn’t bother him as much as he expects it to. It’s strange, at first, to have to sleep there alone, but he eventually finds himself getting used to it. The room is almost unrecognizable without Theo and his things in it, and ever since Xandra came and tore everything apart looking for the stolen money and drugs, it looks almost entirely different than how Boris remembers it. 

Sometimes, when he opens the door, he’s surprised to see only his own things strewn around the place. He half-expects to come across a heap of clothes in the corner, schoolbooks and loose papers littered about the floor, empty bottles overturned on the carpet, a bag of stale potato chips emptied out on the desk, but every time he pushes open the door, he sees only the partially lived-in mess that’s he’s turned the room into. 

For a reason he never really understands, he instinctively tries to keep it as clean as he possibly can. He lives out of his backpack in case he has to make a hasty getaway, but it ends up being more a compulsory thing—something he’s gotten used to after crashing on couches for the past month. The painting remains unopened in the back pocket of his bag, a weight on his shoulders and a constant guilty reminder of what he’s done. 

Sometimes, the bird follows him into his dreams. Always the same. 

For a moment, he sees the painting as it’s always been. The bird looking out, harnessed by its chain. Frozen in time. Then, it comes to life, flapping its wings, struggling against its chain for all that it’s worth. It pulls with all its might, fighting a war of wills only for it to grow weary and settle back down on its perch again. The process repeats, the number varying from dream to dream, but sometimes, it goes on for what feels like forever. The bird flaps its wings briefly, a panicked fluttering that sounds ridiculously like the expensive copy machine in the school library.

At last, the bird gives up. It’s still for a moment, its chest rising and falling steadily, laboriously, until it catches Boris’ eyes and freezes. For a long moment, it simply stares at him, a deer caught in the headlights, until suddenly, a thick stream of purplish-black liquid begins to spill from its eyes like darkened tears, and it stills. There are trails of ink on its white, feathery chest. Its grip on the perch slowly slackens, and, in defeat, it falls forward like a rigid high-diver, hanging itself from one leg by its own spindly chain.

Each time Boris has this dream, he jolts awake the moment the bird dies, always in hysterics.

The job offer from Mr. Silver changes the very course of his life. It’s not a big, important position, nor is it high-paying in the slightest, but it’s enough to carry him over for a few months with a considerable amount of wiggle room. 

He doesn’t give up his new-found addictions—he can’t, he probably never will—but he does manage to wane himself off them a bit. He can’t afford to lose his job by showing up high off his ass, spilling hot coffee onto his superior’s laps, so he stays as sober as he can (which is only remotely) when he goes in to serve Mr. Silver and his gang of despots. 

From observing Mr. Silver in action, Boris learns the art of persuasion. Some tactics he uses are unethical, nothing too extreme, but they’re all surprisingly effective in coaxing out a confession. Fear and intimidation are affluent strategies that he tends to use more often than not. They do the trick every time.

Mr. Silver takes him along one day to a drab-looking casino in the outskirts of the city. The entire ride there, coasting down I-15 in his white Cadillac, surrounded by immense desert on both sides, he relays his plan of confrontation. 

“ _Look_ , Boris,” he says in his Jersian drawl. “We’ll go in there, find Yoakam, and I’ll introduce ya. As far as he has to know, you’re my Russian friend—“(‘Rush-anne’ to Mr. Silver)—“You’re the son of a mob boss, I’ll say. You’ve been trained in combat since you could hold yourself upright. Drink vodka straight like it’s a damn water jug.” The other claims were off, but the latter was pretty spot-on. “You shake his hand, say ‘nice to meet ya’ and you keep quiet, alright? I’ll do the talking.”

By the time they pull into the parking lot, the sun has already set. There are a few cars there, maybe a dozen or so, and they’re all coated in a thick layer of dust. The wind is blowing hard—chipping away at the building, at the cars. Most are about as old as Creation, paint peeling off the sides, dented rims and bumpers. They pale in comparison to Mr. Silver’s shiny white Cadillac. 

The driver, Aleksander, pulls to a sharp stop out front. He and Mr. Silver exchange a few short words regarding the pick-up location. Boris and Ulrich, the right-hand man in this so-called “confrontation,” follow closely at the heels of Mr. Silver’s pointed cowboy boots. 

The rings Boris was given to wear, thick and sterling, serve as quite the distraction to his ever-wandering mind. They could probably pass for brass knuckles if it came to that, and they remind Boris, unbidden, of his father. His father’s rings could tear through skin like wolves' teeth. The crooked, pink scar on his forehead that would never go away was proof of that much. With thoughts of his father came a lull of silence to which Boris fills by turning his rings over and over on his fingers. 

He hasn’t had anything in almost 24 hours, a long fucking time in his book, but after finding out about his importance in today’s "confrontation," he wanted to prove himself, and if that meant that he has to go cold-turkey for a day or two, then so be it.

It’s not as easy as it sounds—he’s jittery and wrought up and entirely out-of-it—but he does his best to act like it’s no big deal. He gets through it by promising himself a drink afterward, a big, heaping glass of vodka (the expensive kind because he’ll be getting paid extra from Mr. Silver after the job is done). The rings help keep him distracted even if they do bring up unbidden memories.

Still, Boris plays the part of the mobster’s son well despite having no experience with such a life. He shakes Yoakam’s hand with a firm Russianette pump. “Pleasure to meet you.” He overdoes his accent in an imitation of his father, whose thick, slurred speech was menacing in itself. 

Yoakam turns out to be a plump old man, round as a yoga ball, with a big, white beard. He’d almost look like the mall Santa at Centennial Crossroads if he wasn’t covered from head to toe in illicit tattoos. 

“Russian, huh?” He’s holding a pre-rolled cigarette, and its smoke wavers as he speaks. 

“Yes,” Boris lies. He knows it’s because Mr. Silver told him so, but Boris hates it when people assume he’s Russian. Why must it be that everyone with a Slavic accent is automatically deemed Russian? “My father has business there.”

“Business?” Cigarette smoke furls out of the corner of his mouth. There’s a tattoo of a topless woman on his bicep. “What kind of business?” 

Mr. Silver, somewhat frantically, answers for him, “It’s undisclosed, under the radar stuff. Highly classified.”

Yoakam huffs, turning back to Boris. “‘Ya here legally?” 

It’s a question that surprises both him and Mr. Silver quite a bit, neither having expected anything of the sort. The truth is, Boris came to America because his father had gotten the mining job. He’d come over on a work visa with the company. Could it be believable that working for Mr. Silver would also require some sort of work visa? Boris knows jack shit about immigration policies. 

He decides it’s probably not all that believable. “Yes, to work for a mining company. I work for Mr. Silver sometimes. He is friend to my father.” 

“Good,” Yoakam grumbles. “This damn place is flooded with all sorts of mixed scum. At least you’re here for good reason.” Another puff of smoke. “You a Commie or somethin’?” 

Mr. Silver sighs and shakes his head, obviously not too fond of where this is headed. “I don’t see why that’s necessary, Yoakam, we aren’t here to talk about politics.”

“It was just a _question_ , Naaman.” He bats a dismissive hand. “C’mon, kid, you a Commie? A Pinko? A dirty fucking _Cossak_?”

Boris bristles with rage. Who does that bastard think he is? Were the racial slurs really necessary? “ _Nyet…_ " Once again, over-doing it. "I love America. Great, strong country.” He meant to speak clearly—genuinely—but his voice betrays him.

And before he knows what’s happening, there’s a press of cold metal against his temple and a hush across the room. Yoakam holds a pistol level to Boris’ forehead, breathing hot, viscid cigarette-breath into his ear. 

_Holy shit._

He doesn’t dare move. His breath hitches, and he looks around among the sea of open-mouthed spectators. 

Mr. Silver’s face is drained of all its color. His tanned skin blanches. Ulrich shrinks back. He tends to take confrontation head-on, a big, burly block on all possible threats, but instead, he cowers, fading into the background like white noise. 

_Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit..._

It takes a moment for Mr. Silver to realize his position in a stand-off like this. Boris is one of his own. “Now, James,” he says, taking a step forward, “this really _is_ unnecessary.”

The moment the gun leaves him, Boris runs for his life. He tears open the back door and bolts out into the desert, the tail of his blazer fanning out behind him like a billowing flag. He runs as far as he possibly can, no sense of direction other than away— _away_ from Yoakam and Mr. Silver and Ulrich and everyone else in that fucking deathtrap of a casino. 

Upturned dust gets into his eyes. He keeps going. Sandspurs sift through his pant legs and embed themselves into his skin. The remnant heat from the newly-set sun burns through the rubber soles of his shoes. He runs.

He runs until he can see only the murky outline of the horizon in the darkness. His heart is hammering madly—uncontrollably—and he thinks for a moment that he might keel over from a stroke and die. The vultures would get to his body, he reasons as he slowly begins to calm down, sitting in the dust, and after they were finished with him, the desert would reclaim the rest of him, just bones. 

Eventually, his heart rate returns to normal, and it’s only then that he realizes just how lost he really is. He’s sober, too—probably more sober than he’s been in a long time. The secret to sobriety, he realizes, is adrenaline. 

He’s fucked. 

He decides to at least try and go the way he’d come, though he isn’t sure if he’d veered off course somewhere along the line. With a sigh, he begins to walk, twisting the sterling rings on his fingers, feet scraping against the dry earth. He’s thirsty—his throat had been scraped dry by the desert dust—but he doesn’t have anything to drink, so he forces himself to keep going in hopes that he’ll find someplace with water. 

He walks for hours. 

Among the rings Mr. Silver had given him was a wristwatch, modest yet valuable, and he checks it periodically to keep himself from going crazy. 

It’s completely dark by the time he makes it to the road, the only light to guide him being that of the moon. The asphalt is cracked and covered in dust, but it’s also the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life. He collapses on the side of the road, breathing heavily. He’s light-headed and dizzy, very close to succumbing to exhaustion, but he does his best to keep his eyes peeled for a set of headlights. 

The watch reads _3:19 am_ , and he falls asleep. 

He jolts awake when he feels the ground rumbling underneath him, an indicative sign that a car is soon approaching. It’s still dark out, and with a brief look at his watch, he deduces that he’s slept for almost three hours. Pulling himself to his feet, he dusts himself off as best as he can, shaking the grime from his matted hair. 

He sees a car in the distance, its headlight beams shining in the darkness, and watches as it grows nearer. A small, red four-door slows to a stop in front of him, and his heart leaps out of his chest. 

The person in the passenger seat cranks down the window and sticks their head out.

A cascade of beautiful blonde curls. The woman in the passenger seat is bone-thin, big-chested, and probably the prettiest woman Boris has ever seen. The man in the driver’s seat—thin comb-over, loose-fitting suit, entirely undeserving of this gorgeous model-of-a-woman in the seat beside him—gives him an unimpressed once-over.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” the woman asks him. She has a thick Southern accent, and Boris notices a thin, silver crucifix around her neck. 

“I— Could I have a ride? Or... a cell phone?”

“There’s no service out here,” the man says in a matching accent, thicker perhaps. “I’ll drive you down to the gas station on the way. Is that alright, Kelsey?”

“Sure,” ‘Kelsey’ says. “Get on in, sweetie.”

He hesitates for a moment, giving them each a long look. It all seems too good to be true. Church-going, Good Samaritans willing to give a helping hand for no personal gain whatsoever, merely to do their duty and serve God or whatever the fuck. There _has_ to be a catch. 

But then again, he has no other option—he’ll probably be waiting on the side of the road for three more hours before another car comes by—so he pulls open the back door and gets in.

He’s immediately hit with a strong, nauseating wave of perfume. It’s flowery and it smells like "old-woman," but Boris embraces it nevertheless. He decides that he likes it better than the burning stench of the desert. The engine sputters as the man puts the car back into drive and pulls back onto the road. 

“So what were you doing out there alone? Did you get lost?” Kelsey turns around in her seat, raising a neatly-plucked eyebrow. 

Boris wonders for a moment if he should tell them the truth. There really isn’t much to the story, but he knows that if he were in their position, he would want an honest explanation. He settles with bending the truth ever-so-slightly, no harm done. “My boss is a moneys investor. Like, with gambling, you know? and he took me to a casino out in the desert so that we could talk this guy into paying off his debt. Then, there was a gun pointed at my head, and I ran into the desert with no idea where I was going. Was walking all night, no food, no water, and then I end up on side of the road, and now, here, with you.”

“Goodness me!” Kelsey exclaims in canned surprise. “You’ve had quite the evening. I just could not imagine such a thing!” She has a hand pressed to her breast. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

There’s something off about her reaction that doesn’t sit well with Boris. He doesn’t think he should tell them his real name, so he spits out the very first name that comes to his mind… “Uh, Theo.”

“Well, Theo,” she says, trying it out for herself. “I’m Kelsey, and this is Tom. We were just on our way to set up for church. Have’ta get up before the rooster crows, but it’s worth it.” It’s a peculiar expression, and Boris takes note of it. 

The next few minutes are filled with only the steady thrum of the engine. Then, the man, Tom, speaks up, “Where are you from, son? You’ve got this accent that I can’t place. Russian, maybe?”

Boris sniffs, “I was born in Australia. My father is Ukrainian, my mother Polish. Moved all around the world for my whole life. Lived in Ukraine the most, then Russia. No one can place my accent, really. Not even me myself.”

“Well, how do you like America?” It’s a question Boris has heard about a thousand times since he’s arrived. 

“There is a lot of culture here. All in one place as well.” It’s the truth, and it’s far more genuine-sounding than how he’d been with Yoakam. Until he came here, he’d never even heard of _taquitos_ or _pozole_ before.

“Glad to hear you like it,” Kelsey says. “We’re from Georgia, so coming out here was a real eye-opener. We lived in Utah for a while, but neither of us liked the cold all that much.”

Boris makes a half-assed attempt at small talk for the next few minutes. He learns that Kelsey and Tom are Mormons, and that they moved to the West to find a bigger community of like-minded people. Tom goes on a long-winded tirade about the Catholic Church and their expenses, and Boris finds himself tuning most of it out. 

He’s exhausted by the time they make it to the gas station, uninterested in their niceties, wanting nothing more than to nuzzle into a nice, warm bed someplace. 

The orange sun is peering nervously over the horizon, hesitant to shine. Boris’ watch tells him that it’s _7:42 am_. Tom pulls to a stop at one of the gas pumps, letting him out. 

“I wish I had something to give you,” Boris tells them as he closes the car door behind him, stepping forward to speak through Kelsey’s window. Just then, he remembers his rings. They could probably be pawned off for a decent amount, at least a hundred dollars each. “If you want one of my rings, you can probably sell it for decent amount.”

“No, that’s quite alright.” Kelsey waves him off. “I hope you make it home alright.”

“Thank you kindly,” Boris says, stepping away from the car to let Kelsey roll up her window, raising a hand to bid them goodbye. She waves until they merge back into the highway, disappearing in a cloud of dust. 

The clerk inside, a teenager with a ‘scene’ haircut, fringe of black covering one eye, leads him to the telephone free of charge, and Boris calls a Lucky Cab to pick him up. 

He takes the cab back into the city and out again, all the way to Desatoya Estates. He builds up enough trust with the driver to let him wait outside of Xandra’s house while he goes in and looks for a twenty to pay him with (Xandra is nowhere to be seen). After he pays the driver and bids him off, Boris stumbles back into the house, too tired to even think about climbing the stairs. He collapses onto the couch in a heap and immediately falls asleep. 

_Fuck Las Vegas._

  
  
  
He never stays in one place for long. Like father, like son. _Kakov otets, takov i syn._

He leaves Vegas in the middle of the night, escaping under a blanket of darkness. Xandra isn’t home yet, so he leaves a note on the kitchen counter to explain things. _I am leaving. Thank you endlessly for your kindness_ , it says. _Bestest of wishes, Boris_. It’s scrawled onto a piece of paper that’s been torn off of the magnetic notepad on the fridge, written in his best handwriting (which is still almost unintelligible). 

He’s honestly quite pleased to see that Xandra isn’t home. Writing her a note is quick and painless, not at all like how it would be if he were to tell her face-to-face. He can picture her face in his mind as he breaks the news—brows raised, lips pursed to the side. 

Ever since he’d shown up at her house the Christmas before, she’d been nothing but kind and accommodating to him—a stark difference from how she’d been with Theo and Larry around. She doesn’t deserve having another person leave her, but it’s what must be done. 

His choice to flee the country is as spontaneous as is expected, and it all catches up to him as he’s sitting on the plane—a direct flight to Rome, paid for with a bit of money that he’d scraped up from his brief yet prosperous time working for Mr. Silver.

He’s never been to Rome before, and he doesn’t speak a lick of Italian, but he’d heard from a few people about how cheap the high-quality shit is over there, and that had been enough to convince to drop everything and go. He’s supposed to meet one of Mr. Silver’s international plugs at the airport, but the guy, funnily enough, doesn’t show.

Boris ends up wandering the streets for a while, looking for something to do. He trips over the uneven cobblestone more times than he can count, but he picks himself back up each time. He’d done three rather lengthy lines of Vicodin after getting off the plane, crouched in a bathroom at the airport.

Rome, he decides, is nothing at all like Las Vegas.

It’s authenticity is indisputable, withstanding even the tests of time. Paintings and sculptures created centuries ago by nimble hands, divinely or otherwise inspired, posed on pedestals in street corners or hung on long gallery walls. Narrow streets, stone buildings lined with balconies, cracked limestone and varnished gold.

Rome is the crackle of a book’s spine, opened after many years of frightened hiding. It is Latin scriptures and texts, etched onto pieces of parchment under the dim light of a candle. Rome is smooth hands covered in chalk dust, light curly hair in the wavering breeze, the smell of fresh bread, rising slowly in a furnace. 

Las Vegas was nothing but a façade—a coat of veneer on a withered mound of desert. It truly began as a utopia for debauchery, stolen from the indigenous people like most of North and South America had been, and it quickly turned into a destination hot-spot for gamblers, druggies, and alcoholics alike. _Ah, Las Vegas. Ironically translated to ‘The Meadows.’_

He walks around with no particular destination in mind, hoping to find someone willing to sell. Luckily, it doesn’t take long for him to come across a group of kids around his age, huddled in an alleyway. Fried hair, flashy rings, thick accents—they end up being pretty nice people. 

Only a few speak broken English (the others look at him strangely), but, after a short exchange of words, they sell him a shit ton of cocaine for a surprisingly low price. Weed is their main business, they tell him, because everyone in Italy smokes weed. They wanted to get the cocaine off their hands. Feds all around. Boris doesn’t mind.

He takes it without complaint, handing over a small wad of money. A few hours before, at a kiosk in the airport, he’d traded in most of his American money for euros. Trading it in felt final and lasting—like he could never go back—and maybe, at the time, he believed that.

He was just so tired of America, and the more of Europe he saw, the more it felt like the place he was meant to be. 

His decision to find Theo is definitely not spur-of-the-moment. He spends a long time debating whether or not he should go, holed up in his flat in Antwerp, wallowing in guilt and self-reproach. After the failed drug exchange in Miami, he realizes how important it is for him to find Theo—to try and track him down to see an end to this mess once and for all. It’s about time he comes clean, absolves himself not only in word but in action.

He hadn’t meant for the painting to leave his hands at all, but it had nonetheless. It was torn from his fingertips in slow motion, pried out of his hands like an unwilling confession. A person Boris thought he trusted turned on him and fled with it under their arms, disappearing into the back of an SUV under a rain of heavy gunfire. Gasoline and smoke, the screech of wheels on tarmac. 

He fled to Antwerp after the deal, needing to stay under the radar as the story took to the news. Gyuri, one of the only people that didn’t currently want him dead, sent him a clipping of the story. In America, it was headline news; _BOTCHED ART RAID IN MIAMI, TWO DEAD._ Thankfully, it focused more on the wrongful death of Mrs. Huidobro than it did anything else, a very subjective exploitation of the Miami police and their tendency to shoot anything that breathes.

His lonesome stay in Belgium gives him ample time to reflect on all that had happened—on everything that lead up to that moment, slumped against the windowsill, cigarette hanging loosely from his fingertips. Ash fell like drifting snow. 

From Australia to Antwerp, his life appeared to any skepticist as nothing but a made-up story. Having a dead mother and deadbeat father was a common enough occurrence, but having lived in nearly a dozen countries before the age of fifteen was something that raised a few eyebrows. Surely that brevity—that fleeting acceptance—wasn’t good for him. A no-attachments kind of life was no way to live. 

In just over a decade, he’d gone from an impoverished thief, starving and suicidal, to a well-dressed businessman, clean-shaven and sharp-tongued. Boris couldn’t be held down, even now, surely not by anyone or any thing or any place. 

Of course, there was the old expression; Like father, like son. _Kakov otets, takov i syn._

Boris’ success, before he even hits 30, surpasses that of his father’s by a landslide. The mining business spares no expenses for its workers, which was probably (hopefully) the reason why his father hadn’t given him anything other than a few occasional loaves of bread or bits of money for the first 15 years of his life. 

Mr. Pavlikovsky, wherever the fuck he is now, is probably living in the lap of luxury (note the sarcasm), drowning in cheap vodka and scantily-clad women. Unless he’s dead, that is. Boris hopes he’s happy either way.

He’s not blind enough, though, to overlook the blatantly obvious. With age, we become our fathers, he concedes, flicking his cigarette, and this truth is only reinforced when he sees Theo again.

Theo’s resemblance to his father is indisputable.

Boris had seen him come in, looking lost and confused, asking around for someone named Katrina. Boris hadn’t recognized him at first. He’d initially thought nothing of it, only wondered for a brief moment what someone who spoke so clearly with an American accent was doing in a place like this. At second glance, though, seeing only the back of his speckled gray peacoat, Boris realizes just who that American-accented voice belonged to. _Could it be…?_

Face flushed with embarrassment, Theo ducks out the door, a strong gush of cool breeze following him close behind, announcing his hasty departure like a warning bell. Boris jumps to his feet, a strangled cry leaving his lips before he can help himself. Myriam is saying something to him, sounding concerned (a rare emotion for her), but, in his eagerness to follow, he can’t hear a word of it. 

He waves off her with an insouciant gesture and hurries out the door after him, stepping out onto Avenue A in a burst of unpremeditated confidence. Theo marches down the busy street, weaving this way and that, expensive loafers scraping against the charred sidewalk. 

“ _Potter!_ ” 

The name, spoken like a prayer, escapes his lips before he even realizes it, and it’s perhaps the first time he’s spoken it aloud since the night Theo left him all those years ago. Boris grins, heart soaring in his chest—rising in his throat—and for a moment, there’s no guilt, only blissful reminiscence. 

He watches in awe as Theo whirls around on his heels, mouth hanging open in disbelief. He looks just as Boris remembers him, yet, at the same time, like a completely different person. 

(Like his father. Larry and Theo could’ve been twins. The only real, distinguishable difference between the two was the glasses, the very same ones Theo wore in childhood, thick and horn-rimmed and pretentious-looking).

“ _Boris_ ,” Theo speaks his name as if unsure whether or not he’s dreaming, airy and uncertain. Boris lets out an incredulous bark of laughter, rushing forward in one swift motion to pull him into a tight embrace. 

“I cannot believe it!” A shaky laugh, a huff of icy breath. “Has been so long, has it?”

Theo nods into his shoulder. A casual, perfunctory, “God, man, it has,” leaves his lips before he can really help it.

Boris pulls away suddenly, holding him out at arm’s length. He searches Theo’s face as if to spot the bullshit. Raising an eyebrow with a practiced ease, the left corner of his mouth furling upward like it always did when he was particularly confused, he says, “‘Man’?”—an indignant scoff, not unkind—“What am I, some acquainted friend from childhood? We are more than that, surely. Than acquaintances?”

Theo winces, “Right, sorry. I know it’s dickish. It’s a habit that I’ve been meaning to squash, it’s just...” Color rushes to his face.

Boris nods understandably, “You must be hanging around some real conventional guys, yes? Guy’s-guys? Like people who call one another ‘brother’ in unironic way? ‘Dude’ or whatever?”

“I s’pose I know a few guys like that.”

A brief silence follows that’s not uncomfortable, merely used to revel in the other’s presence. Theo’s certainly changed, but only in little ways that someone who knew him in his childhood could pick out. The suit he’s wearing, for one, looks like it costs a 5th Avenue rent payment, and his shoes are definitely not made for roaming the streets. He puts a great deal of effort into his appearance for any occasion—an obvious assumption seeing as he’s wandering aimlessly through the city at an hour nearing midnight on a Tuesday evening.

Boris breaks the silence. “ _Wow_ ,” is all he says for a moment, then… “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Theo remarks. “Do you live in the city?”

“No, no, just here on business”—Technically true—”I came by your shop the other day but the man at the desk said you were out. I insisted to wait, but he sent me away.”

“You came by?” A genuine look of interest.

“Must have pissed off Desk Guy more than I thought I had.” Boris shrugs as if to say ‘You can’t please ‘em all.’ “So you weren’t looking for me?” 

Theo shakes his head. “I didn’t even know you were in the city.”

“So this is happy chance then?” 

A disoriented nod. This appeared to be Boris’ way of saying ‘Coincidence?’

“Ah, the universe favors us.” Nodding understandably, Boris acts as if that makes perfect sense. “It must want us together again after all these years. Against all odds, yes?” 

Theo’s face softens. “Against all odds,” he agrees.

(The odds of which had been tailored for all these years to Boris’ will. The guilty hands around his throat had prevented him from so much as trying to reach out and contact Theo in the time between. It was much easier to avoid him altogether. He was such a coward).

Theo runs a tired hair through his hair. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. “To be honest, I never thought I’d see you again. I mean, you never answered your phone and...”

“And I am sorry for that,” Boris interrupts. “That among other things.” 

Theo shrugs. The dismissive wave of his hand says it all. It was no big deal. “It’s okay.” But was it? “I kind of… expected as much.”

“Expected? I am that predictable?” Had Theo really expected him to take the painting? As a kid, Boris stole often, but never anything of such value. 

He shakes his head. “No, no. It’s just…” He flounders for a moment, grappling for the right words. “I just didn’t think you’d follow me like you said you would. You had obligations back in Vegas that you couldn’t leave behind.”

“Right... Obligations.” _Yeah, obligations that suddenly didn’t matter as much after a month or two._

“I forgave you for that ages ago, anyway.” 

“So you are not angry with me? You don’t hate me forever?” He sounds, for a moment, almost self-conscious from the lilt in his voice. Though he’s not smiling, he’s biting his lower lip as if to suppress a grin. “You don’t—” a gesture to a nearby alleyway— ”want to go fight me or something? Beat the shit out of me?”

“Of course not, why would I—?”

“ _Later_ , I will explain…” Boris needs to buy time. (What he _really_ needs is to build up some courage—to get some more drugs in his system before he opens up the conversation about the painting). “We will sit and eat and rekindle our friendship, yes? ‘Hungry?”

Another shrug. “I guess so.”

“We will eat soon,” he says, a bit frantically. He looks down at his watch—a gaudy piece, certainly catching to the eye—and swears lowly in Russian. A brief look around reinforces his apparent urgency. ”I have to do something before and it will only take a couple of hours. Is very important. Will you meet me someplace then?”

(It was nearing midnight. Theo would surely say no…)

“I can if you want me to. Where do you want to meet?”

And so, nearly two hours later, Boris stumbles through the door of the old Polack place only slightly drunker than he’d been several hours before. He slides into the booth across from Theo, regarding the three empty glasses on the table with a quirked eyebrow. “Potter,” he greets in a business-like drawl. 

Theo looks up. “I was just about to leave,” he says cooly. “It’s two in the fucking morning.”

Boris sighs. “Am sorry that took so long. Had something very important to do.”

“Like what?” It appears that his patience is running thin. 

“Is… hard to explain. Much better if you do not know quite yet. To be able to plead ignorance if things turn south.” Theo scoffs, but Boris plows forward, “Look,” he says, leaning forward, palms on the table, “do not be mad! Was not expecting to run into you! I came as fast as I could.”

Theo shakes his head. A flash of understanding passes through his eyes. “No, it’s alright. I’m not mad. I get it.” He crosses and uncrosses his legs as if to recompose himself. “Since you can’t tell me, I just hope it wasn’t... you know, wildly illegal.”

Boris snickers. “Was maybe a little illegal but…” He shrugs as if to say ‘What can you do?’ “not stone-cold murder, yes? Maybe involves a little debauchery-business.”

“Business? So you’re a drug dealer then?”

“No, no, not a drug dealer. Is different.” Eh, half-right.

Theo rolls his eyes. He opens his mouth as if to respond, most likely with another gibe at Boris’ mysterious profession, but a loud clatter of silverware temporality distracts him. A waiter, formidably dressed, comes up to the table and sets down a tray full of food: potato salad, black bread, red herring, a soup of indeterminate contents. Boris speaks to her in a guttural Polish, and, after a moment, she stalks off.

No one else, whether they’re seated at the bar or in one of the booths, has a tray of food—not even a measly bar appetizer like french fries or chicken wings or something—and Theo naturally begins to wonder how exactly Boris put these people up to this. A whole meal, several courses, was just handed out to them as if it were nothing. “Do they serve food here?” 

“No, but they make an exception. Friendly faces and all.” Boris smirks as he reaches for his bowl of soup.

“You know these people?” The waiter comes back with two glasses of vodka, each filled to the brim. She sets one down before them both, and then, coaxing another _Dziękuję_ from Boris, shuffles back over to the bar.

“I know people who know these people. Friends of friends, yes?” 

“You must be pretty successful then?” Theo smears his piece of black bread with a hefty glob of butter. “If people know you like that.”

Grinning sheepishly, Boris stares down into his soup. “Yes, I figure so.” 

“And humble, too.” 

“Fuck off, you asked.” As Theo snickers into his drink, Boris reaches across the table and pats his cheek. “I am a ‘small business owner’ if you know what I mean.”

Theo was quiet for a moment. If Boris wasn’t a drug dealer, what other kind of ‘small business’ could he be getting himself into? “‘Small business?’”

Boris shakes his head, stuffing a sizable piece of rye into his mouth. “Is not important.”

“Alright then,” Theo says, waving a white flag, “where have you been then?”

He swallows hard and, in a gesture from childhood, cups a hand around his ear. “Eh?”

“Where did you go after Vegas?” Theo reiterates, cutting a piece of herring with a well-mannered poise. 

Boris waves an expansive hand. “Everywhere.”

“Like…?”

“Italy, France, Holland, Poland, Sweden, Belgium.” He lists them off on his fingers, though he doesn’t seem to be thinking too hard about it. “More than I can name, am sure. Mostly Europe.”

“‘You been back to the States since then?”

“A couple of times. Always swamped with work.” _Yeah_ , he suddenly thinks, _like Miami_. He washes his bread down with a slug of vodka. It doesn’t burn his throat like it used to. 

“What about Russia? You’ve said how much you liked it there. Did you ever go back?”

Boris rubs his nose and nods. “Yes, every so often. Not so much anymore, though. Politics are crazy now.”

“I figured you went back,” Theo says, and he suddenly looks a bit uncomfortable. “You know, since I never heard from you.”

“Ah, yes...” Boris winces. A bubble of shame rises in his throat. He suddenly doesn’t feel too well. “It was a messed up time after you had gone. _Very_ fucked-up.”

“What happened?”

“I probably have never seen darker days,” Boris says, and its truth resonates for a moment. “You know how I had all that coke from Xandra’s stash, yes?” Theo nods, a dull bob of the head. “Well, you know, logical thing would be for me to sell it, but no. Most of it went right up my nose. The rest I gave away. Everyone liked me—they brought me along to parties and I helped them get drugs. For a while, to get money, I worked for Mr. Silver and his crowd, but they were—”

“You what?” Theo couldn’t hide his disbelief.

“...I was living with Xandra at the time...”

“What?!”

Boris chuckles under his breath. It _was_ a rather shocking revelation, now that he thought about it. “My dad had left. Gone back to Australia, he said. I had nowhere else to go. On Christmas, just after you left, I was so sick and tired and hungry that I could barely stand. And so I went to your house and saw that Xandra was alone, so I knocked on the door. She yelled at me for a long time, complaining about this and that, but then she let me in and, for a few months after that, all the way until I left, I stayed with her and kept her company.”

“Bullshit,” Theo says, though he seems to genuinely believe it. “That’s insane. I thought she hated you.” 

“So did I,” Boris says, “but she was so alone that she really didn’t care who was with her.”

“But what about… what’s-her-face? You called her ‘Kotku’? Couldn’t you have stayed with her?”

“Ah,” he winces. “Kotku and I were not together at that point. Her boyfriend, Mike—” he spits out the name as if it were poision in his mouth— “had come back from Marine school or whatever-the-fuck and was hungry for her attention. Anyway, her boyfriend and I got into a fight and I was very drunk and Kotku got mad and… _Poof_!” 

“I learned my lesson, though,” Boris continues, “from all those times I acted up because I was so drunk or high. If you met me five years ago, you would not have liked me very much. Drunk all the time, high all the time, so skinny and underweight that it alarmed people. But now I am different. Act cleaned up and slate wiped clean. I still do a line or two. Never as much as I used to. But—” an offhand gesture— “enough about me, what about you? ‘You have been doing well?”

“Alright, I guess...”

Boris waits for some sort of elaboration, and, when he doesn’t get one, goes on himself, “Antiques trade, eh? Big business?”

“That’s right.” His responses had, at this point, gotten almost monosyllabic. Boris writes it off as the late hour and decides that it’s probably better that they get going on their journey. If Theo doesn’t want to bring up the painting, then so be it. 

In the car, laughing madly, Boris pulls out an Altoid tin full of cocaine and an old business card to a Moscow hair salon, both of which Theo accepts gratefully (and not because he’s planning on traveling all the way to Russia for a discount trim). There’s music blaring from the stereo _,_ tuned to some foreign station that Gyuri likes. Their teeth clatter as they dole out two proportionate lines. 

“You’ve got a fucking driver?” Theo yells over the music, gesturing toward Gyuri and he tries to hold the tin steady for Boris. “That’s insane!” 

“Yes!” Boris laughs, coming back up, wiping his nose. “I have people working for me! I am people’s boss!” He points to Gyuri and shouts, “I am _Gyuri’s_ boss!” 

“Unfortunately,” Gyuri quips as he swerves into another lane, sending them both into a peal of laughter as they’re thrown across the seat. 

“You better watch yourself,” Boris says, trying and failing to sound mock-serious. “I can fire you quick as arrow if I want.”

“Sounds like bad idea, Borya, and you know it.” Gyuri sends him a look in the rear-view mirror. “Am one of the only people on your side now.”

“ _God_ , Boris,” Theo says, picking at the skin on his lips, “What did you do?”

A question that was innocent enough with an answer that was far too complicated to explain with such nonchalance. 

Gyuri had, however unintentionally, given him the opening to explain the real reason he’s here—no more hiding. An admittance of guilt. Eight years of preparation for an apology, yet still he has trouble forming the words. It spills from his lips like running water. “I have been trying to get it back for you,” he says, and the entire mood of the car shifts, “I wish that I could.”

“You... what?”

Boris frowns. It’s certainly not the reaction he was expecting. “Is the reason I came. Am sure you heard of the Miami stuff. Was worried you thought it could be traced back to you, but I made sure it could not be. Lots of people turned on me after. Except Gyuri—” he gestures to the man sitting in front— “And I have been trying to get it back ever since. “

“I wanted to tell you this, but the real reason I came was to apologize,” he continues. “To say that I am _so fucking sorry_ for what I did to you and that it has eaten me alive for eight years. And I feel so horrible because I remember how much you loved it and, well... I loved it myself, but I feel so bad for what I did. It was dirty and wrong and—”

“What are you talking about?” His expression is unreadable, his face pinched in a way that Boris has never seen it before.

“Did you think your dad took it? Did you read the inside?” Boris could scarcely believe it. Had he really worried all the years about how Theo would discover that the painting had been switched for nothing?

He hadn’t slept for eight years because of that painting and the guilt that weighed him down because of it. The bird haunted him, but then again, so did the truth. 

For a long moment, time moves slowly. The world dims around them. 

“How…?”

“You are a blackout drunk, Potter,” Boris says as if that explains everything. It offers him no justification for what he’s done. “You showed me it yourself. You do not remember _Dr. No_?” 

Theo shakes his head numbly. 

“I kept dropping hints, but you never said anything, so I thought you just did not want to talk. But you showed it to me, and then I took it. I hid it in my locker and got Kotku to help me switch it. I was going to give it back the night you left, but you said you had no time. You insisted to go now, so I never had the chance. But it has eaten away at me ever since and I—”

“ _Stop—_ ” 

But he can’t stop now that he’s already started. “—I switched it! I thought you knew. Am so sorry, Theo, I did not _mean_ to—!”

“Stop the car!”

“What? _Potter—_!”

“STOP THE FUCKING CAR!” 

Gyuri pulls to a sharp stop on the side of the road, and, as car horns blare around them, Theo tears open the door and climbs out into open traffic. Heart in his throat, Boris calls frantically after him, head out the window. He disappears behind a throng of pedestrians, and, with a defeated sigh, Boris falls back down into his seat. “Fuck…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you made it all the way down here? i'm surprised, to say the least. hope u liked it anywayz
> 
> oh and hit me up on tumblr if u wanna @ladyweasels


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